Here's What It's Like To Be A 'Breaking Bad' Location Scout

What are the main things you look for in a location, things that have to be there in order for you to hire the location?

I look for what we call “production value.” High ceilings are always good, spacious rooms that can fit a film crew. Interesting architecture, colors or decorations are sometimes good. They always hate a “white box” so rooms with some kind of depth or strange shape are usually a plus. Proximity to other locations is a big deal in TV, because we usually don’t have the time or budget to move the crew very far. On Breaking Bad I’m often sent to find something that looks “Breaking Bad-y,” which basically means a cool looking piece of crap.

Tell us about yourself, is it your plan to continue being a location scout, you are obviously good at it?

I’m really only as good as my department. We have a very solid locations team on Breaking Bad that I absolutely love working with. But personally, I consider locations a sort of back up career that takes up all of my time. I like to think of myself as a screenwriter, I have written many shorts and I’m working on a few TV pilots of my own. I would ultimately love to be a show-runner like Vince Gilligan someday and be the one who calls the shots creatively. I also have recently stumbled into acting, and I really wouldn’t mind becoming a handsome movie star either.

The reason I ask is while researching you I found this comic series you created www.tippyandfriends.com is that what you want to do in the future? How is that going?

Yes, thank you for mentioning it. I always wanted to be a newspaper cartoonist, long before I ever wanted to work in the movies. I thought I’d give a web comic a try and now I’ve been making Tippy and Friends daily for over a year. I would love it if it somehow became my job, but that’s probably not very realistic, especially because it’s so incredibly unpopular. I continue to make them in an attempt to stay creative. My life can’t just be about work or I start to go crazy, so forcing myself to come up with comics every day keeps me inspired and sane.

AMC screencap

—– More Info About The Series:

In this show Bryan Cranston (Malcolm In The Middle) plays Walter White – a high school chemistry teacher who early on in Season One gets diagnosed with lung cancer. Walter White then turns to making crystal meth to setup his family for life in preparation of his potential death.

Aaron Paul stars as Jesse Pinkman – Walter’s former student now turned small time drug dealer, who partners with Walter to make high quality meth.

Dean Norris also stars as Hank Schrader, Walter’s DEA brother-in-law – just to spice things up. And Anna Gunn plays Skyler White, Walter’s wife who at the time of the diagnosis is pregnant with their second child.

The show is now in its fifth season. Breaking Bad has won many awards including six Emmy Awards, Bryan Cranston winning the Emmy for Outstanding Lead Actor for three consecutive years. Overall, the Breaking Bad has over 26 industry awards and has so far been nominated for a further 58 awards.